Chief Executive Leung Chun-ying has appointed four members, including anti-Occupy activist Barry Chin Chi-yung, onto the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC). The IPCC is an independent statutory body responsible for monitoring and reviewing the investigation of complaints against members of the Police Force.

[Nov. 22, 2015] Wen Wei Po reports that the Hong Kong Police Inspectors’ Association Chairperson Ngo Chi-hang has distributed four posters featuring pictures of disciplinary forces engaged in frontline law enforcement work, including one of the pro-democracy Occupy movement. The posters ask the force and their friends and their families to “cast a ballot you will not regret”, vote for “a candidate that contributes to the prosperity and stability of Hong Kong, and only let “someone who does real work for the society” onto the Council. (HKFP)

[Oct. 15, 2015] Ken Tsang’s case: The police belatedly charges not only the 7 officers who beat him up a year ago, but also Tsang himself:

Proposed amendments to the Interception of Communications and Surveillance Ordinance will give Hong Kong’s Commissioner on the Interception of Communications and Surveillance greater oversight into the conduct of the territory’s law enforcement agencies. In a set of recommendations submitted to the Legislative Council, the Security Bureau recommends empowering the Commissioner’s Office to use wiretapping and other eavesdropping devices to monitor law enforcement agencies for illegal breaches of Hongkongers’ privacy.

“Forcebook”, as some are already calling it… a primary aim is to re-build public confidence in the 28,000-strong force that went from heroes to zeros with a large section of the community thanks to their controversial handling of the Occupy protests that started a year ago this weekend…In December last year, a survey by the University of Hong Kong showed the police were the least popular among the city’s disciplined services… Another HKU poll, released in June this year, said the gap between the proportion of people satisfied with the police force and those dissatisfied with it was at its narrowest since the 1997 handover.

only 209 or 22 percent of the 955 protesters arrested during the Umbrella Movement have been prosecuted as of July, Ming Pao Daily reported. Also, 40 of the 140 cases in which a verdict was delivered ended up with the charges dismissed or the defendants exonerated, the report said.

A 27-year-old chef who was accused by police of charging cordon lines “at a jogging pace” during the pro-democracy Occupy protests last October has been found not guilty of obstructing a police officer… The footage then showed him running to avoid being hit by police pepper spray… He then fell over and was subdued by the police. The evidence contradicted the testimony given by police officer Ho Yu-hin, who claimed that the defendant repeatedly charged police cordon lines. Ho also said that he had assisted in overpowering the defendant, but there was no sign of Ho throughout the video.

The Complaints Against Police Office (CAPO), part of the police force, has suggested Hong Kong’s police watchdog reconsider its decision that a senior officer assaulted Occupy protesters last year, Apple Daily reported. On July 10, the members of the Independent Police Complaints Council (IPCC) concluded on a 12-6 vote that Superintendent Chu King-wai used his baton to beat two passersby during a clearing operation in Mong Kok in November and was suspected of abusing his power.

In a report titled “Police Power in Umbrella Movement”, Professional Commons, a non-profit public think tank, said police excesses may have led to at least 2,067 citizens suffering physical or mental trauma.

The report, which was prepared in association with Hong Kong In-Media, an online media group, covered the period between September 26 and December 15 last year, when police sought to quell the Occupy street protests with a heavy hand, Apple Daily reported.

Professional Commons and Hong Kong In-Media jointly set up a database on police violence to help victims seek justice. ….

The report also pointed out that only 48 of the 955 arrested protesters during the occupy Movement, or 5.03 percent, have been prosecuted as of May, compared to the 12-86 percent prosecution rate range for protesters each year in the past.

In addition, people were convicted in only 11 of 32 cases where a verdict has been delivered. That marks a conviction rate of 34 percent, also clearly lower than the 47-53 percent range before.

The figures suggest that the police had abused their power in making arrests, the report said.

All police officers are to enforce laws governing public order “more strictly” to prevent any “suspicious” gathering of at least three people from turning into a protest, according to a new guideline from the top cited by multiple police sources… If necessary, another source said, the crack Police Tactical Unit would be deployed to patrol the streets. The stipulated enforcement actions are provided for under the ordinance, which since 1967 has outlawed any gathering of three or more people without police permission. The law came into force that year to crack down on pro-Beijing leftist riots against British colonial rule. It was briefly relaxed during the final years ahead of the handover – so protest organisers need only notify the police of their plans – but was reversed after 1997, making it a must to obtain prior police approval.

Pepper spray and police batons seem to have become the new normal, even inside shopping malls. The “shopping revolution” is mutating into an anti-shopping revolution, with Civic Passion and HK Indigenous protesting against “parallel traders” from mainland China. The police used pepper spray first in Tuen Mun and then in Shatin. Protestors should maintain nonviolent discipline so that police force backfires on the police rather than on protestors.

… bear in mind the enormous effort the police had invested in detaining this single person, and then how hands off they became once things got really serious and laws were blatantly broken.

… If getting the Beijing loyalists in was impressive, extracting them was a military operation to behold. The police effectively made an impenetrable blue tunnel for them to scurry through. It was an epic, superstar treatment fit for a king. Needless to say, tensions were now off the charts and most importantly, confidence of the “blue ribbons” in the area was at an all time high. The police had demonstrated in spectacular fashion which side they were rooting for, and so the fighting began.

At this point, let us remind ourselves of the first localist arrested – the man was chased 100 metres down the road, hog-tied and carried onto the police van by six officers. Yet when the police were now confronted with victims of assault, with obvious signs of injury and multiple people wanting to give statements, the police let them go. No hog-tying, no violent police takedowns and no pepper spraying. Those accused of the assaults were given the friendly shoulder tap and released out of sight.

… All in all, the night was a sad example of just how much energy the police will spend on detaining localists, while going to great lengths to avoid detaining their own so called supporters.

The aunties never featured in the night, not even for a minute. The night was never about dancing. The localists chose the dancing because they knew it would raise alarms with the authorities, and true to form, the Hong Kong police showed once again that they are now just a paramilitary force set up to defend the mainland Chinese. They are happy to let clear assaults pass by in plain sight, so long as those assaulting support mainland China.

three assault suspects and fillers in a police lineup were allowed to wear face masks and shower caps, making it impossible for their victims to make a positive identification. The three are accused of assaulting television journalists during last year’s democracy protests. Police officials later announced they had decided not to press charges due to lack of evidence, prompting the justice department to clarify that what they meant was they needed to investigate further.

Albert Cheng, founder of internet radio D100, said the policemen came to the shop in the Sheung Wan MTR station on Tuesday. One of the officers told a staffer: “So you people are members of the yellow ribbons”, Cheng was quoted as saying by Metro Daily Wednesday… Cheng said the officers might have engaged in political harassment which is a violation of their supposed neutrality.

The police’s intimidation of protestors is also contrasted with their inability to arrest criminals, esp. a gunman who stole luxury watches on Mar. 12:

In clearing Occupy Mongkok, the HK police again forgot the Sep. 28 lesson that the excessive use of force can only backfire rather than silence dissent, and that massive arrests can only strengthen rather than weaken determined protestors. By beating up and arresting even passers-by, the police also achieve the counterproductive effect of sending more people to support hard-core protestors. (See https://victoriatbhui.wordpress.com/?s=backfire)

Worse, some police actions show worrying signs that HK is starting to descend into a police state. This is what wikipedia says: The term “police state” has “taken on the emotional and derogatory meaning of a government that exercises power arbitrarily through the police.” Here is a longer, more academic, elaboration:

“Decisions of state leaders come in two basic forms, routine and exceptional. The implementation of routine decisions means that state officials in their regular practice attempt to fulfill and comply with standing laws and procedures that govern their activities. In contrast, the implementation of exceptional decisions comes when bureaucrats obey an order from an authorized state superior, such as a president or governor, that comes in response to specific circumstances that may be discretionary, or even potentially unlawful, under existing rules. For example, when the police investigate crimes defined by law, this is consistent with the implementation of routine decisions. When the police implement an order to overlook the crimes of a political ally of the leader, or frame political opponents of the leader for a crime they did not commit, this represents compliance with exceptional decisions.” (p.16) “Analysts of law enforcement have noted the potentially wide gap between ‘police power,’ in terms of the formal laws and rules that regulate police functions, and ‘police action’, the actual behavior of the police.” (p. 34)

“Overall, under Vladimir Putin, the Russian state showed a much greater capacity and willingness to deploy state coercive organs against opposition political parties, candidates, and groups. Russia’s power ministries were able to respond to exceptional tasks set by the state leadership in terms of fixing elections and cracking down on opposition demonstrations.” (p.99)”Power ministry personnel are more oriented toward serving their own personal interests or those of the powers that be than those of society as a whole; predation and repression dominate over protection in terms of law enforcement behavior and norms.” (p. 288) “to the extent that this regime of repression became institutionalized, attacks on regime opponents stopped being extraordinary tasks and became routine ones. ” (p.303)

“Putin’s philosophy toward the use of the law seemed [to be]: ‘for my friends, everything; for my enemies, the law.’” (p.106) “A Russian NGO noted that almost all opposition demonstrations were banned or dispersed by the police … At the same time, pro-Kremlin groups… had no difficulty conducting marches and rallies. This is clear evidence that the new regime of repression was deployed in an exceptional fashion against antigovernment forces and was not simply part of a stronger capacity to uphold public order during legal demonstrations.” (p.98)

“What is ‘disorder’ in the eyes of a man in uniform? It’s the absence of control. If there is not control, there is the possibility of independent influence… The Duma [legislature] is not subordinate to the presidential administration? Disorder… Political parties wanted something, the mass media talked about something? All of this is disorder that must be liquidated. And they liquidated it. In seven year [under Putin], the chekists [security ministries] have completely changed the political system in the country, not changing one letter of the Constitution.” (p.62)

(Brian D. Taylor, State Building in Putin’s Russia: Policing and Coercion after Communism, Cambridge University Press, 2011.)

Coincidentally, Chinese president Xi Jinping calls the judiciary a ‘knife’:

In an important meeting in early January, Xi stated that the party must ensure “the handle of the knife is firmly in the hands of the party and the people.”… Xi’s speech and the subsequent hoopla about the revival of the knife metaphor in state-owned media makes clear that the party still sees the police and courts as weapons, not neutral actors charged with enforcing the law. (China’s President Raises Eyebrows with Sharp Rhetoric on Rule of Law)

HK isn’t quite a police state yet. But the police are no longer the same police that I used to know. When I was little, my mom always told me: if you are lost and separated from mommy, don’t trust anyone else but the police uncles and aunties; ask them for help and they will reunite you with us. When my girl was little, I told her the same thing. Fast forward to today, that trust is gone for good. People are probably having nightmares about ferocious police officers wielding batons, shooting pepper solution and firing tear gas.

The police are supposed to be impartial, serving the public interest and applying the law without regard to political affiliations. But that long-cherished neutrality has been eroded under CY’s watch. (See a blog post on police neutrality by a friend of the police 香港警察，竭力中立 and Li Yi on professionalism 專業)

During the clearing operation in Mongkok, it seems as if the police became fearful of HK people, beating up and arresting reporters and passers-by as well as protestors. The police are clearly trying to prevent re-occupation of Mongkok by protestors. And occupy supporters started to answer CY Leung’s call to “go shopping in Mongkok.” But how could the police distinguish protestors from ordinary passers-by in a place like Mongkok? I have always found Mongkok extremely crowded, so crowded that it can be difficult to stop to look at things without getting pushed by people behind me. If the police have no tolerance for crowds, they may as well shut down Mongkok altogether. Protestors have cynically remarked that the police are imposing curfew in Mongkok. That may well be the only way to keep Mongkok free of crowds, but that would be tantamount to declaring “war” on HK people (in the language of theories of state-society relations). It would also be the sure way to kill HK’s economy as well as freedom, and in full sight of the world. See Thousands of police stationed in Mong Kok to stop Occupy protesters re-taking the streets

Ah Fung (not his real name) is a typical police officer, politically neutral, always ready to obey his superiors and serve the public…. What frustrated Fung most was that the police viewed themselves as a tool of the government rather than law enforcers. Fung insists that the government intervened in the operations of the police. In the police academy, cadets were told that police serve the people by executing the law, and not by serving the administration… Fung also revealed that members of the police management have instilled the thinking that the protesters were the enemy. “It was like a culture that has spread throughout the squad, we were led to believe that we should support the police no matter what,” he said.

NOW TV and Apple Daily photojournalists/support staff were arrested and beaten, though the NOW TV staff was later released. Here is the statement by the HK Journalist Association :

The Hong Kong Journalists Association condemns in the strongest terms the second arrest of journalist covering the police clearance of the Occupy protestors in Mongkok. An Apple Daily photographer was arrested by the police while reporting on police operation in Mongkok yesterday evening. He was suddenly pushed to the ground, handcuffed and taken away. Other reporters in the vicinity asked officers for the reason for this shocking action but no response was forthcoming. A PPRB spokesman said the reporter had assaulted a police officer. Handcuffing a reporter covering a public protest is an escalation of anti-media actions in the current police operation. This is similar to the pouncing on a now TV engineer for allegedly attacking an officer in the same vicinity two nights earlier but subsequently released without any charges being made. These arrests are serious violation of press freedom enshrined in the Basic Law. They serve as an intimidation against the media from monitoring the police action. The message: “Don’t get too close or you will be arrested”. We condemn such brutal acts on the part of the police to stifle press coverage of the current crisis. We demand the immediate release of the Apple Daily reporter and an explanation from the police on the latest attacks. The Association is making an appeal to all members of the press and the public to submit to it any complaint and evidence of police interference or violence against the press. All evidence should be submitted to hkja@hkja.org.hk.

Riot police used pepper spray and batons in a bid to drive back the protesters and the clashes led to a number of arrests. Among them was award-winning international photo-journalist Paula Bronstein, who was detained after jumping onto a car to take pictures. Her arrest was later condemned by the Foreign Correspondents Club, which issued a statement accusing the police of “intimidating” journalists. (Violent clashes in Mong Kok cast doubt on government’s plans to break Occupy impasse)

Police were quicker to use batons and to arrest protesters than they had been in the past as they opened roads on Wednesday in the densely populated neighborhood of Mong Kok. Two high-profile student leaders were among the nearly 150 people arrested in the operation, which ended around 2 p.m. on Wednesday. (Hong Kong Protest Site in Mong Kok Cleared)

People on sidewalks were beaten for walking too slowly and/or talking back to the police:

Innocent passersby were beaten or treated rudely by police officers who were trying to stop protesters from retaking the streets in Mong Kok… An officer attacked a pedestrian with his baton even if the man was following police instructions to leave without showing any sign of defiance or assault….a large number of police officers pushed people, telling them to move forward, and used batons against them. Many of the pedestrians said they were injured in the waist or shoulder. (Police accused of beating up innocent passersby in Mong Kok)

Law Yuk-kai, director of Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor, said police officers might have abused their authority when by arrested ordinary pedestrians. “Unless the police can prove that the people they arrested were protesters, their actions are unacceptable, even crazy,” Law said. “It’s like being in a totalitarian state.” (Police tighten control of Mong Kok after clearance and 警察用警棍疑從後擊中過路市民人權監察稱不可接受) The police threatened to arrest observers as well. 阻人權監察 警：觀察員都拉)

the treatment was in breach of Article 28 of the Basic Law, and violated the International Bill of Human Rights… 30 of those arrested were seeking legal advice on whether to take action over their treatment.

Academics staged a march to protest police brutality on Dec. 5: 大專界學袍遊行 不滿警方濫用武力

This data includes how, when and where they were injured and the severity of their injuries. The setting up of this database is, firstly, aimed at building a detailed and genuine historical record of the sacrifices our fellow citizens and protesters made, so that they won’t be forgotten. It is also aimed at providing data for a review of the local human rights situation and the rules of engagement adopted by frontline police officers. (How to monitor and prevent police violence)

Seven years ago, it would have been hard to imagine that the police force in Hong Kong — which as recently as 2007 enjoyed satisfaction ratings as high as 80 percent — would be less liked than the People’s Liberation Army, whose support rating has never surpassed 70 percent since a PLA garrison moved into Hong Kong following the city’s handover to China in 1997. But Hong Kong’s current police commissioner, Andy Tsang, appointed in January 2011, is widely unpopular and carries a reputation for inculcating strong-arm tactics, particularly after he allegedly told a reporter in March 2011 that it was a “fantasy” to expect an apology after officers had pepper-sprayed a minor at a protest scene. Accusations of brutality during the demonstrations have hastened the police’s slide from favor and reinforced a sense that the city’s law enforcement, once lauded for their gentle touch with crowd control, are bullying the public instead of protecting it. Condemned as “black cops,” Chinese slang for police gone bad, officers were often caught on camera beating, kicking, and chasing bloodied pro-democracy demonstrators down the streets with batons and riot shields at hand, including in an Oct. 15 video that showed several police holding down and flogging an unarmed protester. (Seven of the officers involved were later arrested.)

The new card will employ a built-in radio frequency identification (RFID) transmission technology to improve security and speed up data retrieval…. The enormous capability of the Hong Kong ID card as an instrument of social control has been clearly demonstrated in the 79-day Occupy protests. During the final day of the campaign, police officers did not arrest many of the pro-democracy activists in the protest sites but simply took down their HKID numbers. Armed with those HKID numbers, police can easily find out their address and take action to arrest them if the circumstance warrants. An upgraded HKID card will vastly improve the ability of authorities to track down pro-democracy activists and take action on them.

HK Federation of Students urges nonviolent discipline in the face of police brutality. 周永康：非暴力是最大武器. They are of course right. Maintain strict nonviolent discipline because you can’t win in the balance of forces/guns/batons.

Win over police officers, however difficult:

It is also worth considering Srdja Popovic’s advice–focus the ire on the CY Leung government and try to win over police officers, even one at a time. Those ferocious faces that we have seen in the past two months don’t represent all police officers. Expand the ranks of civil servants who support genuine universal suffrage. Popovic’s message:

we, together, are the victims of the system. And there is no reason …to have war between victims and victims. One victims are in blue uniforms, other victims are in blue jeans, but there is no reason for that blood in the middle of those two columns. So we picked up four or five headlines in the news with that message, and we know that it produced results within the police. (http://www.aforcemorepowerful.org/films/bdd/story/hif/srdja-popovic.php)

From the beginning, Otpor had treated the police as allies-in-waiting. Otpor members delivered cookies and flowers to police stations (sometimes with a TV camera in tow). Instead of howling at police during confrontations, Otpor members would cheer them. (Tina Rosenberg, “Revolution U,” Foreign Policy, 2/16/2011. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/02/16/revolution_u)

HKFS is talking about escalation in response to police brutality . See “Hong Kong Protesters Consider Moving From Streets to Government Buildings.” It is understandable why student leaders want to do something to show their outrage and to keep up the momentum. But don’t get fixated on methods of concentration such as occupy and mass demonstrations, think about potentially more effective methods of dispersal such as targeted boycott. And it is worth remembering how students’ satyagraha walk against the high-speed railway (反高鐵五區苦行) deeply touched HK people in 2010.

Paradoxically, the clearance of static occupy, a method of concentration, organically gave birth to flash or fluid occupy, a more sustainable method of dispersal. Occupy Mongkok mutated into a “Shopping Revolution” after CY Leung said: When the occupy site is cleared, people can go shopping there again. For how much longer can the police keep up this de facto curfew?

“Now it’s the reverse; we are on the offensive and the cops are put on the defensive,” said a semi-retired protester aged in his 50s who wished to be identified only by his surname, Ng. Having joined the gau wu tour nightly since last week, Ng said window shopping was “a lot more fun” than guarding the roadblock outside City Hall in Central, which he has done since the start of the Occupy protests. “This is not even illegal,” he said.

The Cantonese term 鳩嗚 for shopping is a new invention. When a woman was asked why she participated in an anti-occupy rally during the summer, she said in Mandarin that she came to “shop (in Mandarin: gou wu 購物)”. Pro-occupy people then created the Cantonese transliteration of “gou wu” which means “yelling nonsense”. See this page on umbrella terms.

And adoption of the “hunger games” sign outside of a movie theatre in Mongkok:

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Why pepper solution is more powerful than pepper spray:

A pepper spray-based solution used by police on pro-democracy protesters was “much more powerful ” than pepper spray and tear gas, according to a South China Morning Post photographer temporarily blinded by it yesterday.

I’m angry at the persistent, gratuitous violence by the police now in Hong Kong against people on the street. And I’ll tell you who I’m angry at… I’m angry at YOU For tacitly accepting it as a consequence of people protesting for their rights. Persistent protest is not the cause of an up-spiral of violence by the police.